ESFotoClix Blog

Not only do we beat ourselves over sharpness, as we discussed a couple of days ago, but we also torture ourselves over noise in our images, with boundless efforts to generate the cleanest, most spotless images we can muster. We shoot with as low an ISO as we can manage, make sure the shadows get enough exposure to avoid pulling out more noise in post-processing, and we even hire Ninjas to come and make the noise disappear.

Yet, following the reasoning we used when looking at how much sharpening is needed in an image, we didn’t seem to mind grain so much back in our film days. In fact, sometimes we even felt as if grain added character and grit to an image. As an example, see the Marlboro man photo (or this one). Take the grain away from that image, and it loses something. You decide what that something is.

We can’t go on in this discussion without touching on the difference between Luminance vs. Chrominance noise in digital photography. Luminance noise resembles film grain (see link), whereas Chrominance is that magenta/green firework-like mess that makes us cringe. If we’ve used a compact P&S camera at high ISO (say, 400!), we’ve seen Chrominance noise. Yes, this is noise we should seek to avoid, and perhaps this is the noise that drives our noise phobia.

Fortunately, today’s DSLRs do a pretty good job of minimizing Chrominance noise. Many tools exist for removing noise, whichever type it may be, but usually noise reduction comes at a price, namely loss of detail. In light of this, we should ask ourselves whether we can live with the film-like grain due to Luminance noise that we get at higher ISO’s (or in under-exposed shadow areas). Here’s a favorite image of mine, taken at ISO 400 with my Nikon D80, for which I received some alarming comments regarding the noise in the green background.

Click for larger image

I’ll let you be the judge about whether the noise in this image is acceptable, but I have to wonder how much more grain I would have gotten with 400 ASA film. In fact, I’ve grown weary of my obsession with reducing noise to a bare minimum. I much rather have good detail and some noise than no noise and poor detail. Yes, I should not get sloppy, and I should keep in mind the image needs. Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about. What the image calls for, and how I should try to maximize its potential. That said, in the end it’s about whether the image is compelling, not about how much noise it shows.

Why all the noise about noise, then? Maybe it comes in handy to justify our next camera purchase, or as a distraction from what actually makes a good photograph. Whatever it is, I think I’m going to relax about the whole thing and go out to capture some good photographs.